[Joseph Owens]

There is a difference between the plain vanilla quicktime that everybody has to download youtube and the Quicktime Pro that Final Cut needs to deal with the zoo of codecs that we now need to deal with.

Essentially you are dealing with a long-GOP format when HDV becomes involved… and you probably are not going to enjoy it in its native form especially considering that you intend to do VFX with it. It is very highly compressed, which is great for consumer-level hardware configurations. That is also its only advantage. Quicktime Pro is where you’re going to have to go if that is the route you’re committed to… or… expand it out to a codec where all the frames are real.

jPo

[Joseph Owens]

No, no difference whatsoever. The Beta SP is insensitive to the signal origin or path. Audio is present at the inputs to the Beta SP in all cases. I get an occasional burp of audio at the programmed “OUT”.

Probably I’m using too many words.

Assemble works. The Beta SP will record both Audio and Video.
Insert: Beta SP will only record Video, and will not record Audio in any insert combination under FCP control. It acts like Video Only in all cases.

It will record video and audio in insert mode under Local control with the same feed path. It is a Remote issue.

The feed is irrelevant. It is just not getting the command to record audio in insert mode, even though the little yellow dots beside A1, A2 are illuminated in the FCP ETT window. It works fine with the D-Beta, and I’m betting that the Sony ‘A’ protocol is different between the machine types.

That’s the long and short of it.

jPo

[Joseph Owens]

Its a plain-vanilla PVW-2800, RS422, etc. Like I say it will do an assemble, no sweat, so it IS getting audio at the inputs. Under FCP control, it will do a V+A1+A2 insert, but it won’t record the audio… it won’t do an Audio-only either. It will do it under local control. I can Frankenstein the project together at this point and send out the tapes — but revisions to the audio will be out of the question, because at this point its uneditable with a sync source.

I’m SDI-out from my suite, so I’m actually using a D-Beta as a decoder on the other end and sending on the Y, R-Y, B-Y and audio from the D-Beta to the Beta SP. I don’t see this as an issue because ASSEMBLE works!

What I suspect, and its always the first thing that I do, is that there is some issue with the FCP/Kona 422 ETT drivers. Stunningly flaky since the last update — change Mastering settings and you get the beach ball of death. I wonder how long until the BBOD becomes as comonplace as the Windows/DOS BSOD (Blue Screen of Death, for those who are Apple-only).

jPo

[Joseph Owens]

I find the FCP6 serial device control to be freakishly sensitive and anxious to crash the system if anything twitches. Kona3 with breakout box that was pretty good up until a few months ago.

jPo

[Joseph Owens]

You are going to lose the Time Code correspondence no matter what you do.

In the varispeed mode, frames are recorded out to tape at 59.94, with what can be interpreted as 29.97 code. If you do, for example, a Frame Rate Conversion down to 24P, then the code is regenerated at 23.98. If you were shooting at 60, then essentially its a 40% speed change. For all intents and purposes, the converted footage should be considered to be new original media.

Under FCP/QT, you have the option of modifying the time code to whatever value you want, for instance, to perhaps achieve the same hour number for some kind of cataloguing purpose.

But the reality is that you are generating new footage, independent of what was shot.

Simply dropping the 720P60 footage on a 23.98 timeline may result in what may APPEAR to be converted (slowed) media… but it is NOT. The player looks at the time code and determines what the clip duration is. If for example, you captured a one-minute clip at 60, then dropped it onto a 23.98 timeline, you would get a clip of one minute duration — but the media within it would play at what appears to be 40%. Some math: a one-minute 720P60 varispeed clip, converted to 23.98 should be 2 and a half minutes long. But unconverted, there will only be a one minute clip on the timeline! So you will draw the conclusion that not all the footage was captured — because the clip will play at 40% up to the end of what FCP/QT thinks is the timecode-derived duration of one minute… then stop.

What I want to know is…. why is the Panasonic Frame Rate Conversion Tool so flaky? IE. messages like “codec is not DVCProHD”, and “that clip has already been converted”, and “clip is not at 59.94″…. when they bloody well are, and haven’t been converted, because that is exactly what I am trying to do….!!!!!

Yeah, yeah, there’s all that ‘root browser’ stuff…. FIX IT!

jPo

[Joseph Owens]

This bit of advice is actually in AJA’s FAQ list.

Its bewildering that the discrete set of editing controls DO NOT work, while the drag-and-drop to the Canvas method does.

Does anyone know why this is?

JPO

[Joseph Owens]

And a Speedgrade License is $___K?

JPO

[Joseph Owens]

You can choose.

In the Codec tab there are two dropdowns for picking colorspace and gamma either deliberately or automatically.

JPO

[Joseph Owens]

Just off the top of my head… things that I have encountered:

Frame rate capture discrepancy shot at 24, cap’d at 30, edited 24…

Illegal characters in the file names… these things are show-stoppers when going to Color.

JPO

[Joseph Owens]

Or use a combination of all…

I’ve got an Intuos tablet, and of course i use the stylus when I need that gestural style. After some urging, I eventually tried a “trackball” mouse… makes a big difference in speed and all that “scrubbing” goes AWAY. So, no more going off the edge of the mat, especially dealing with a widescreen/ two-screen interface.

JPO